Amar’e Stoudemire was making the rounds of the ESPN campus on Tuesday to pimp his new shoes, but all anyone wanted to talk about was how he couldn’t wear those shoes on a court right now. And will not be able to for a while.

“I think we’re pretty far apart, but the most important part is that we’re trying to work to get something done,” Stoudemire said while making appearances on “SportsCenter” and “ESPN First Take” at ESPN’s Bristol, Conn., headquarters to promote his new sneaker, the Nike Air Max Sweep Thru. “There are so many jobs at stake; their livelihoods are on the line. We’ll get a deal done eventually.”

“If we don’t go to Europe, then let’s start our own league; that’s how I see it,” the 6-foot-11 forward/center said.

Stoudemire was asked to gauge “how serious” the idea is being considered.

“It’s very, very serious. It’s just a matter of us strategically coming up with a plan, a blueprint and putting it together,” he said. “So we’ll see how this lockout goes. If it goes one or two years, then we’ve got to start our own league.

If the summer tour of charity and pro-am games has showed us anything, it’s that the NBA’s ability to organize and promote shouldn’t be underestimated. Glitches marred pretty much every game. To the point that when LeBron James and Dwyane Wade were asked about a players league last weekend, they laughed it off.

Good luck setting up that players only league. I’m sure you guys can pack a ton of fans in high school/college arenas that you rent out, and the players are all 100% business savy. I’m sure you will easily bring in enough money to provide for your multimillion dollar salaries.

Just ask Vince McMahon how easy it is to launch your own new league.

Yes, I’m sure that “It’s very, very serious” that you guys plan to start your own league because the players are very very stupid to even comptemplate such an idea. I hope they aren’t all as dumb as you Amare.

“If the summer tour of charity and pro-am games has showed us anything, it’s that the NBA’s ability to organize and promote shouldn’t be underestimated. Glitches marred pretty much every game. ” Shouldn’t that read “…overestimated”, with all those glitches you mention? But that, well, would be an actual criticism of the players, no?

Read it again. He is saying that after seeing how poor of a job the players did organizing and promoting their own exhibition games, you shouldn’t underestimate the NBA’s ability to do so. In other words people take for granted that organizing, promoting, and marketing the game is a simple task because the NBA does it so well the effort in doing so is often underestimated.

I have said numerous times on here, that a players’ league is not a realistic option for many reasons – this is just one reason and not even the main reason.